


Thoughts Twisted Inward

by Merkwerkee



Category: Void Jumpers
Genre: Crying, Horror, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, no comfort, spoilers for s3 e5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27373279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: Being psychically linked with someone means you can speak to them in their head, and feel what they're feeling...but that's not always a good thing, and people deal with trauma in their own ways.
Kudos: 1





	Thoughts Twisted Inward

A great weight yanked on the back of Tag’s mind, and his body collapsed as his awareness was pulled outside himself.

“Bryn. Bryn. Hey, can you hear me? Bryn.”

This felt strangely familiar - _had he done this before?_ \- but his desperation was too great to think on that now. Bryn was here, he could see her - but she was fading fast, brilliant golden fire cooling and dimming. Instead of the beacon he knew her to be, she was a tracery of yellow-orange outlines with deep cherry painting the spaces in between. It was so far from her usual self, Tag felt his heart leap into his throat.

“…yeah?”

The reply to his question so weak and unfocused - so unlike the Bryn he knew. Even when she was distracted, he would never describe her as ‘weak.’ Now, though, she sounded the way a dying campfire looked; still warm, with motes of light here and there but - ashy. Dimming. Forgotten.

“Hey, hey buddy, how ya doin’?”

Tag deliberately kept his voice light as he worked desperately to keep her from floating away. He _had_ to figure out some way to keep that warm fire from becoming so much ash and smoke on the breeze; she was holding on to him and their connection, but that couldn’t keep her present this way forever. He knew the others were working - knew they _had_ to be working - on her body to keep her alive, he just had to make sure they had enough time to save her.

“I feel really weird, um…”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know what happened, I just, I…”

“Um…I don’t know either but just, just stay with me, okay? Just listen to my voice, look at me.” Her voice had trailed off and he could see the embers becoming dimmer. She was fading, and he cast his mind desperately for any fuel to feed the fire - anything to keep her warm. Alive. Connected to the world she belonged in. “Y'know let’s just, let’s go, let’s go through the things that are hooking us here, alright? Um, what are you so excited to eat as soon as we get out of this lab?”

Several long moments passed, and Tag kept his attention riveted on the fading Fire Summoner. He could only do so much; she had to ignite the fuel he offered to warm her. He could only offer it, coax her into burning it - he couldn’t start the fire for her, only help her feed it, keep it alive.

“…Moonberry pie?”

Her formed flared a little, outlines becoming more yellow than orange and the red brightening to the color of hot iron, and he smiled encouragement.

“Moon. Berry. Pie. Me too. Tell me what it tastes like.”

He waited for several long moments, but it seemed the spark hadn’t caught. Bryn faded, outlines dimming towards red and spots of ashy grey-white appeared between them. Whatever their friends were doing in the physical world, it was taking too long - she was fading fast.

“Um…it’s so weird, Tag. I can’t focus very well, and I, I can’t…”

Fear spiked his throat (again?) and he swallowed. “You need to try. Bryn, I need to you to try. Imagine you’re picking up a slice in your hand, I’m there at your door…”

Tag hadn’t paid it any attention before now, but the place they was in now was somewhere strange. A blanketing heaviness surrounded him, feeling almost like the membrane between the real world and the phase state and all was grey save for the golden thread he held with both hands. His connection to Bryn, he knew, and it was fraying even as he watched, golden threads dimming to red before dissolving in ash and smoke. Bryn wasn’t in quite the same place he was. He could see her, through what almost felt like some sort of veil, but she was beyond the phase state even as he saw her in her phase form - what was left of it, anyway. 

The thought pinged something in his hindbrain. He would never have thought of it before, but - he _knew_ what was beyond the phase state. One of the things beyond it, anyway, and while he didn’t know if Bryn would end up there, he knew he could make it. He could take them both beyond, to the place where he was all-powerful. He could _do_ it, and _save_ her.

And he owed it to her to at least _try_.

Tag pulled on the thready connection, forcibly yanking Bryn toward him even as he let go of his physical shell and launched himself forward. She made a soft sound of surprise as he crossed the membrane and collided with her, sending them both tumbling. The last few strands of their connection puffed into ash at the strain just as they crossed the second border. Strangely, he couldn’t feel the whole of himself - anything beyond three dimensions remained locked away - but that wasn’t the important thing. The important thing was the ashy, barely-there embers of Bryn that he held in his iron-clad arms.

Focusing his will, the ichor of the ground surged up to cover Bryn. He had to fix her, heal her, make her whole again - and here, in this place, he _could_. In this place, his will was absolute and his word was natural law. A silent honor guard of Others quietly gathered as he worked, but he ignored them; they were unimportant, insignificant next to him and the whole of his attention _had_ to be on Bryn. The ichor surged and roiled, obeying his will as he commanded it to heal her - to fix what was broken. Their connection did not reform, though he hadn’t really expected it to yet; it had taken an entire ritual to establish it the first time, after all, and he hoped he’d be able to establish it again with her.

Finally, the roil stopped and he let the ichor fall away. Bryn was in his arms, looking for all the world like she was asleep. It was her physical form, too, perfectly reformed to his specifications - if perhaps a bit pale. Her chest rose and fell, and he felt something in his chest ease. He nudged her gently, not wanting to wake her roughly after the time she’d had.

“Hey. Hey Bryn, it’s time to wake up,” Tag said, doing his best to keep the faintest hint of doubt from his voice.

Bryn’s eyes snapped open, and Tag **couldn’t** drop her.

“Thanks Tag! I’m feeling great.” Two empty holes where her eyes should be began to weep black ichor as she spoke, and more of it dripped from her lips at every word. It stained her teeth, and he could see little dribbles of it beginning to leak from her ears too.

“Bryn,“ he said numbly as horror began to creep up his spine. His arms refused to let her go, as much as he wanted to recoil. "No, no Bryn, I didn’t mean-”

“Oh Tag, I’m _fine_ now. In fact, I’m _better_ than ever!” She spread her arms even as her face fixed in that horrible ink-stained grin. “See? And it’s all thanks to _you_ , Tag. _You_ did this to me; you _saved_ me.”

“No.” _No no no no no_ Tag’s brain began screaming even as his mouth ceased moving. No, he hadn’t meant to- to- turn her! He hadn’t meant to make her like him! He’d meant to _save_ her!

He could see their bond snapping into place, bonds of ichor tying them together like chains. He could feel her in his mind, only she felt more like an extension of himself - an anchor of ichor that dragged him down, where once the warmth of Fire had buoyed him up. It was _wrong_ in the worst ways.

“ _You_ did this, Tag,” Bryn said again, somehow no longer in his arms despite him not having moved them. “ _You_ did this to me. And I’m feeling _better_ than ever.”

Even as she spoke, a black iron crown formed on her brow - a twisted parody of the one he’d seen half-dad wearing - and all the Others in the room bent forward to bow to their great and terrible queen.

Tag awoke with a gasp, staring wildly around at the dimness of his room. The nightmare clung to him almost like the ichor did - it had felt so _real_. He had been so, so _desperate_ to save Bryn that he’d-

He didn’t want to think about it.

But he couldn’t get that image out of his brain. Bryn, corpse-pale, grinning at him as ichor dripped down her cheeks like black oil tears. He hadn’t even thought of the consequences, he’d just instinctively pushed them both into the Malice’s arms and destroyed everything that she was to keep a mockery of her alive. Selfish, how could he be so _selfish_ -

Bryn almost dying, finding out he truly was the seed of evil in the world, the destruction of Last Shore - he hadn’t really processed anything at all. Hadn’t really taken the time. But now it all came crashing down around him, surging up his throat and burning at his eyes until big, fat tears began streaking silently down his face.

It had been _years_ since he’d cried, but now he couldn’t seem to _stop_. Everything that had happened, everything he’d learned - it was all so _much_. His hands twisted in his hair, tugging on it, while his forearms shielded his face from the world.

This body that he inhabited was just a created shell - the closest thing he had to a parent was _half-dad_. A _monster_. He’d never had a mother, or a real dad, never had someone who’d loved him enough to bring him into this world, and the childhood dreams he’d had of finding his parents crumbled into the ichor staining his soul. He’d cherished those dreams as a kid, hearing the other parallels talk about their families. He’d dreamed of one day his parents coming back for him, of making them a whole family again, of knowing where he’d come from - though those dreams had faded as he learned more and more about being a parallel.

Then, too, there was finding out what he really was - a monster in a human shell. Tag shakily traced the scar down his arm as his body shook with ugly, heavy sobs. Confined to this human form, he couldn’t quite visualize the whole of himself - human brains weren’t designed to think in more than three dimensions, even conceptually - but he remembered the _hunger_ , the need to _consume_. The Others destroyed solar systems. They ate everything like a _plague_ \- and he was Other in a human skin. He wasn’t hungry now, but just the memory was enough to make his stomach cramp painfully. He was a planet-eating monster, not human at all, and nothing he did could ever change that.

And Bryn had nearly _died_. The beginning of the nightmare replayed painfully behind his eyelids, the feelings stamped into his brain. He could feel her across their bond, sleeping peacefully - he made sure to cordon off that section of his mind so she wouldn’t have to suffer from his stupid inability to control himself - but the memory of that bond turning into a chain and anchor was brutally clear. The others had managed to get her into the rejuvitube in time, and she’d lived - but what if she hadn’t? What if he’d failed, like so many other parallels? What was he supposed to do if his Summoner died? Would he just come back to his body like nothing had happened? Would he get pulled out entirely and get sent back to the Malice?

He didn’t know, and he couldn’t stop the tears that that uncertainly brought with it. Tag buried his face in his arms and sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. He cried for the things that might have been, for the things that were, and for the things that never could be. Great hitching breaths shuddered through his thin frame, more tears sliding out every time he thought he was almost done.

Eventually he fell into the grey, exhausted haze of not-sleep not-awake, and stayed there until the chronometer chirped with the start of the day.


End file.
